PROTEST AGAINST THE ROBBERY
-      OF,  TEEOF
, c \j'
COLORED  RACE
BY THE PROPOSED
AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION.
REV.' GEORGE B. CHEEVER, D.D,,
PASTOR OF THE CHURCfH OF THE PURITANS, IN NEW YOHK CITY.
NEW YORtK:
ROBERT J. JOHNSTON, PIINTER,
S3 BEEKMAN STREET.
1866.
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A N A L Y S I S
OF
THE PLAN OF RECONSTRUCTION.
Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger as for one of
your own country. For I am the Lord your God.-Lev. xxiv., 22.
Thou shalt not respect persons; that which is altogether just shalt thou
follow.-Deut. xvi., 20.
Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak
in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment.-Exodus xxiii., 2.
And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them,
and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified. Mark xv., 15.
FROM the present Congress, the first Legislative Assem bly of the United States after the defeat of the rebellion
and the assassination of President Lincoln, much was justly
expected for God and the country. The opportunity was
vast and grand.  And the vox populi, if not the vox Dei,
was heard gladly, and they did many things. And in be half of the colored race, in the fresh, grateful remembrance
of the services of two hundred thousand soldiers, many
admirable speeches were made, and much  was promised,
from the enactment of impartial suffrage in the  District
of Columbia, to the same just measure in the rebel States.
And great admiration and applause was bestowed in view
of isuch patriotic assurances, and wise and good beginnings.
The disappointment of a failure is severe in proportion.
For the conclusion of all this deliberative glory is a pro' posal to amend the Constitution of the United States, not
in behalf of justice, but against it; not for the protection
of the colored race, but for their oppression; not to release
them from the endurance of wrong, but to deliver them,
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for the content of the rebels, to be morally crucified. For
such is the result, in our country, of constitutionally depriving them of the right to - ote on account of the color of the
skin.
The question is one of public morality and justice, and
must necessarily be examined in the light of the Word of
God, in regard to the obligations between government and
people.   Let us consider.  1. The supreme jurisdiction
and consequent responsibility of Congress in the matter
and their present position. 2. The position of the colored
race, and the origin of the plan of reconstruction excluding
them from suffrage. 3. The Report of Congress as proposing such exclusion by Amendment of the Constitution.
4. The nature of the Amendment as a violation of Divine
justice, and a revolution in the government against the
rights of the whole people.
POWER AND OPPORTUNITY POSSESSED.  ASSUMPTION AND
POSITION TAKEN.
Even if the rebels were not punished for their treason we
had a right to expect that the blacks should not be punished for their loyalty. The Congress have had full power.
In every measure looking towards justice they have been
sustained by the country. The country would have received
with acclamation a law securing to the colored race the right
of suffrage. The Congress had complete jurisdiction. The
Report of the Committee makes this evident. Whatever
they did in behalf of the rebels, the3 could have done as
much in behalf of the loyal population. If it was in their
power to provide that the rebel States should retain their
authority over the colored race, it was equally in their
power to have provided that the colored race should have
the same authority, the same privileges, the same rights,
the same representation in proportion to their numbers, and
the same security, as the white race.
But Congress and the Committee have proceeded on the 
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assumption that while the white race have natural and inalienable rights indestructible even by treason, the rights
of the black race are only such as the white government
may please to bestow upon them. The white race possess
their rights by nature, the blacks receive theirs only by
governmental grace, the whites constituting the sole determining authority.
This is a direct violation, on a vast scale, of the law of
God in regard to governmental justice, that it shall not be
conducted with respect to persons. If only one man were
deprived of the right to vote, by an enactment of the Legislature, or a decision of the judges on account of the color
of his skin, that would be a glaring instance of respect to
persons. How much more if a class of many thousands be
deprived of that right, by an enactment of law, an amendmeut of "the organic law" in the Constitution, contrived
for that very purpose!
This aspect of the matter brings it up as a religious interest, a thing demanding examination because it contravenes the religious obligations and Christian conscience of
the country; a matter requiring the strictest judgment at
the bar of God's Word. It is not a mere political tramnsaction, or a question of political economy or expediency, but
of fundamental vital morality, a question of the violation of
justice, both personal and public.
We have come to a most solemn juncture. What we do
now we do by legislation, and we are laying the foundations
of many generations.  What we sanction as a power in
States we put as precedent and construction into the Constitution. If we leave the States at liberty to deprive the
colored race of suffrage, in spite of the clause requiring us
to guarantee a republican government, then for all QComing
time it will be pleaded that a republican government is
decided to mean a government the benefits of which are
only for the whites.
We have bee~ promising that if we had the power we 
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would free and elevate the slaves. We have justified ourselves for not abolishing slavery, because we could not do it
by law. If we could we would redeem them. We would
legislate in their behalf, if we had the power. God said,
Give the power.  Behold they are in thine hands to do with
them as thou pleasest. And we not only refuse to pass a
law for their protection, but give them over into the power
of rebel States to oppress them, so amending the Constitution for thiat purpose, that it shall be an elementary right
of State sovereignty to deprive them of their rights at pleasure.
This is the trial of our government.  Every other has
been trifling. If we cannot legislate for the protection of
our citizens, but in various parts of the country communities
of two or three hundred thousand have the right to defraud
and oppress other hundreds of thousands, and we cannot
interfere by the power of righteous law, then our government is a failure.  The ability and the spirit to c rry on a
war are common qualities. The power of wise legislation
and of the protection of all the citizens under equal laws is
another thing. Our government is vaunted as having stood
the tug of a war of four years against a rebellion in behalf
of slavery. It must have been a thing unworthy of the
name of government if it could not stand that.  But now
comes the real trial. If it is so weak that it dare not or cannot legislate for justice without respect to persons, but is
compelled to leave the weak'and defenceless in the power of
the wicked and the strong, then it is no true government.
RESPEFCT OF PERSONS IN GOVERNMENT A CRIME AGAINST GOD.
TE question before us is the government of the whole
country by the'Constitution, and of all its inhabitants, black
or white, as citizens and subjects of the United States on
the principles of justice and liberty, for which government
is ordained of God. The government cannot constitutionally separate the inhabitants into classes of black or white 
to be treated with a separate legislation according to the
color of the skin. It cannot suppose a possibility of any
particular class or race of the citizens of the United States
being shut out from the common rights of citizens under the
Constitution on account of blood or race or complexion.
Whatever it does, as the supreme parental government for
the people, by authority derived under God from the whole
people, it must do for all.
Especially, in the case bef'ore us of the rebel States,
the government cannot recognize as authoritative or instructive the prejudices, customs, or municipal laws founded
in slav;-ery-cannot adopt such things as examples or precedents. The government cannot permit the interpretation
and application of the Constitution to be determined by
local prejudices or statutes, and habits of ostracism and
caste, of the nature of attainder of blood, from generation to
generation. These oppressions may have grown up and
existed in violation of the Constitution, both the letter and
spirit of which, once directly applied, would sweep them all
away.  Now the time has come, in the good providence of
God, through the rebellion, in which the Constitution can
be directly aplied for personal freedom and justice.  And
now to permit these abuses to stand as interpreters of the
Constitution, or nullfiers of its equal justice, to consult
these oppressions as the Urim and Thummim of the State,
or to admit them into the Constitution as its legitinmate
products or advisers, would be monstrous. We might as
properly adopt the buried codes of Pompeii or of Sodom
for our instruction in morals. It would be like forcibly administering the will of a dead person, who had left large
quantities of poison to be given to his servants. The
rebel States being dead in law, we propose to assume and
administer as a legal constitutional heritage the prejudice
against the negro, and the custom of oppMsion excluding
him on account of his complexion from our own common
rights of humanity, from rights which we would ourselves
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die rather than relinquish. This is the false position into
which we have been thrown as a government and people in
consequence of the President adopting the prejudice against
color as the corner-stone of his scheme of reconstruction.
That scheme was presented in his proclamations ordering
the rebel States to appoint conventions of the people for the
framing of loyal State governments. The primal question
was, Who should vote? The disqualifying condition was
the color of the skin, and that condition was appointed by
the President, in that he designated as the only person
who should be allowed to vote those who had exercised
this right in the year 1861, at the time when the States
went into rebellion. The two States with which the President began were North Carolina and Mississippi, where the
right of voting was limited to free white male persons.
The corner-stone of reconstruction was thus hewn from the
old quarry of oppression. If President Johnson had himself said, No negro shall vote, this would not have been
a more effective and direct exclusion of the negro by his
own fiat.  It was a proclamation of the prejudice against
color and of the municipal and State laws against the same
by the President of the United States.   Taking the old
law from rebel authorities, he proclaimed as United States
law and ordained by his own will and choice that no colored
person should vote. This was the tap-root of reconstruction,
and every after measure took its vitality from that. The
vote is the primal element of republican freedom. The
exclusion of any one class from it is the primal element of
despotism, and is the agency by which a republican despotism may be made more cruel and intolerable than any
other.
But the object of our government is justice for the people. It is certainly a government of,the negroes under it,
as well as of the whites, and its object is the same in both
cases-the securing of their rights as citizens and subjects,
as a portion of the people, to whom the government be 
longs, and for whom it is bound to be administered. The
government cannot rightfully be one thing for the negroes
and another'for the whites. Our Constitution and government are of and for the people, irrespective of complexion or race. In its application in the work of reconstruction we have nothing to do with the constitutions and laws
which the rebel and slaveholding States had when they entered into the rebellion for the perpetuity and supremacy
of slavery. Especially we cannot recognize as a pattern,
starting-point, or model of reconstruction the constitutions
and laws which were framed for the security and perpetuity
of slavery. We cannot accept the distinctions which grew
out of slavery, as things to be perpetuated or held sacred
and authoritative.   Neither can it be admitted that any
rebel State shall designate its own conditions of return into
the Union, especially when those conditions demand the
oppression of loyal citizens as a class beneath the sole government of the rebels as the superior class. We could not
constitutionally permit or establish an hereditary governing
class, even if all classes were equally loyal; much less can it
be just or endurable that the rebels be established as' the
sole governing. class, to the permanent oppression of the
loyal class. Nor is any apprehended insurmountable prejudice or determination of the rebels against the loyal
blacks having the right of suffrage any justification for
the proposal of the Committee to give and continue to the
rebels the right to take away that right at their pleasure.
i'ssENCE OF THE PLAN OF RECONSTRUCTION.
Yet this is the essence of the plan.  It is to make the rebel
government a white man's government, on the ground of
an insurmountable prej adice and habit that has grown out
of slavery-and is now put forward as a justification for leaving the whole and sole power of government in the rebel
States in the hands of the whites, that is, of the rebels.
The proposed amendment of the Constitution, authorizing
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them to exclude the colored race from the vote, new creates
and establishes this white oligarchy.   The whole Presidential and Congressional statesmanship of reconstruction is
comprehended in this one element, every other being subordinate or subselwient to that.
If it is intended to keep the blacks, or any other class, in
serfdom, it is only necessary to exclude them from voting.
If it is intended to return them by State law under pretence
of legal guardianship, intQ slavery, it is only necessary to
exclude them from voting. Anything that the governing
power wishes to do with the governed it can accomplish
simply by withholding the right to vote from whom, and
bestowing it upon whom it pleases, even to the extent of
enslaving the non-voting party.  This is the perfection of
State sovereignty as contended for at the South. This is
the sovereignty that is being reconstructed in the Union on
any plan that excludes the colored race from the vote. It
is the sovereignty of the white man's government, at present limiting its exercise to the color of the skin, but includidg the power which at any time may be developed,
of a still more stringent despotism against any class that
may becdome the object of hatred or jealousy.
ALL FREE PERSONS ENTITLED TO THE VOTE BY THE CONSTI                         TUTION.
The Constitution of the United States was framed and
adopted not with the right of excluding the colored race
fro]n the vote; but, on the contrary, with the exclusion
of the supposition of such a right as impossible. The
attempts were made by South Carolina to introduce an exclusion by color, and rejected.   The article which was
adopted, basing representation on the whole number of free
persons, looked forward to the time when all would be free,
and would have the same right of representation, irrespective of color or race. This is evident from the pages
of the Federalist and the declarations of Hamilton and 
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Madison, as well as the various Bills of Rights adopted by
the States.  In the fifty-third number of the Federalist,
it is presented as the opinion of slaveholders themselves
that if ever the slaves were set free, the right of representation on their part would immediately follow. The declaration is very remarkable, and is as follows:
"It is only under the pretext that the laws have transformed the negroes into subjects of property, that a place
is disputed them in the computation of numbers: and it
is admitted that if the laws were to restore the rights
which have been taken away, the negroes could no longer
be refused an equal share of representation with the other
inhabitants."
This great event having come, that portion of the population of the rebel States heretofore excluded from the
vote by slavery and color, are now on the same footing with
the other inhabitants, constitutionally possessed'of that
right. They enter into the condition anticipated by Madison and Hamilton, so that the rebel States can no longer
refuse, and the Congress are bound to secure for them, an
equal share of representation with the other inhabitants.
Unless the Constitation be altered, this is inevitable.
It is therefore proposed to amend the Constitution, so as
to give the rebels the privilege and right, if they choose, of
disfranchising the negroes on account of their color and
race, thus enabling the rebel States to avoid the necessity,
and destroy the benefit, contemplated by Madison and
Hamilton under a free Constitution. And Congress, in
sanctioning this amendment) are seen in the position of
interfering to take away those rights which the negroes
would otherwise have had under the Constitution as its
framers and the people had established and accepted it,
though they have disavowed the right of interfering to protect those rights.  It proposed on purpose  to alter the
Constitution in order that this interference against the
negroes may be justified and accomplished.  In the sight of 
God and justice, is this anything else but a legislative fraud
and robbery?
THE LEGACY OF FREEDOM AND ITS EXECUTOliS.
We may illustrate the responsibility and the action of
Congress by a familiar figure. The legacy of freedom having fallen to the colored race by the interposition of the
Almighty, ill the suicide of the slave States, the Congress
have no right to withhold that legacy, or to interfere with
it, or to alter its provisions, or to pervert its income, or to
take away any of the privileges or rights connected with it
or belonging to it, as to the same legacy in possession of
white citizens in any of the States. The Congress are
merely executors in trust in behalf of the colored race, that
they may receive the utmost benefit from the legacy that
ever can be received, or that can legitimately be gained
from it, or that the white race reap from the same. The
Congress have no more right to withhold the income, or to
turn it over to the former masters, or to put it out of the
power of the heirs and into the keeping of the rebels, than
the e,xecutors of an estate left to a poor widow by will
would have to take the income of that estate and invest it
for their own children or give it to the keeper of a billiard
table. The Congress have no right to legislate against the
blacks, no right to prefer the white rebels before them, no
more right to put the power of disfranchising the black
race in their hands, than they wvoull have to put the power
of disfranchising the white race in the hands of the blacks.
The Congress have no right to legislate in regard to the
blacks at all, except as citizens, with the right of representation; no right, without consulting them, to pass any law
affecting their interests much more consigning them to the
condition of persons dead in law.
The Committee of Fifteen had no right to propose any
measure injuriously affecting their rights, without  their
consent. In all their investigations, have they proposed to
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inquire what were the opinions and wishes of the colored
race? In all their tender consideration of the habits of
the rebels and the prejudices of men long accustomed to
trample the colored race under foot, and in all their anxiety
to conciliate those prejudices, have they so much as thought
of questioning whether the rights and preferences of the
blacks were to be taken into account? They have legislated, or proposed to legislate, according to their own showing, solely in behalf of the whites, and against the blacks
to their injury. They could not put them back into slavery.
The amended Constitution forbade that as a crime. They
could, by another amendment, cast them down into serfdom,
by giving their masters the right of destroying the vital
right of freedom, the right of suffrage, and this they propose to do. Is there any consultation of the persons whose
rights are thus sacrificed? Have the Committee sent into
South Carolina to ask whether the majority of the people
of that State would prefer to have the Constitution amended so as to put all their rights at the mercy of the minority?
Has there ever been a Committee of Congress in Mississippi to call together a convention of the loyal colored race
of that State-a vast majority of the population-to learn
from them what they thought was best, and what, in their
opinion would be the wisest permanent reconstruction?
They have proposed to abandon the negroes as to the right
of suffrage, to the disposal of the States according to former
usage, because the reluctance of the whites to give up that
power is quite insurmountable. Have they inquired of the
negroes as to whether they were willing to be thus abandoned?
The voice of the Congress to the rebels in the proposed
amendment is singularly degrading to our own government.
If you choose to rob our citizens, do it; we shall not interfere to protect them; we will sanction the robbery. If you
rob them of the right of suffrage, which you regard as your
most sacred property, we will make such robbery a consti
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tutional right confirmed to you for ever, only, you cannot
be permitted to avail yourselves of their votes; having destroyed them, you cannot make a property to yourselves of
them. You may rob your victim, but we will make him a
personal and public blank, so that, though he is in your
power to degrade and insult as you please, you cannot make
political capital out of him. You are at liberty to take from
him the right of representation; but if you do, you cannot
any longer be represented by him. We guarantee to you
the constitutional liberty to take from him the dearest right
of his constitutional liberty. We amend the Constitution
on your behalf against him for the purpose of securing you
in this sacrifice of his rights. We gave him his liberty, and
amended the Constitution for that purpose, to deliver him
from slavery; and we pledged ourselves to pass such laws
as should be necessary to protect him in that freedom.
We now amend the Constitution in order that you may
again seize, bind and condemn him as a slave; that you
may take from him and from us, all power of protecting
him, by taking from him all right of representation. Strip
him of that right, and you can do with him as you please;
we c an do nothing for him.
POSITIONS AND  LOGIC OF THE  COMMITTrEE.
The amount of reasoning and conclusion in that part of
the Report relating to the colored race is as follows:
1. The former slaves have been made free citizens.
2. Their rights, civil and political, as such, ought to be
secured.
3. The vote is the power of self-protection and security.
4. Being such, it is a full and adequate protection to all
classes of citizens.
5. The equal participation of all, without distinction,
in all the rights and privileges of citizenship, is required
to such full and adequate protection.
These propositions are gathered from the Report. The 
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conclusion to have been expected was that Congress are
bound to secure by law to the colored race as well as the
white that power of self protection in the vote, as freemen,
of which they have always been deprived as slaves, and as
deprived of the right of representation, heretofore, on ac count of the color of the skin. But, instead of this conclu sion, the committee have presented,
6. The question, whether to give the vote and its power
of self-protection to colored citizens in the rebel States;
a question involving,
7. The assumption of the right to withhold it at our plea sure, without consultation of those who are to be defrauded
of it.
8. The reasons why it should be left with the rebel States,
to be withheld at their pleasure from the colored race.
The rebel States have always had exclusive possession of
political power, consisting in the power of determining the
vote as not belonging to the colored race, but only to the
whites. The habit of such despotism is so fascinating, and
unconquerable, that it is doubtful "whether those States
would consent to surrender a power they had always exer cised, and to which they were attached."  Also, "doubtful wl ether Congress could act directly in the subject."
9. Conclusion therefore proposed, to leave with those
S tates all this power still untouched, if they choose to exer.cise it. Authorize them to disfranchise citizens by reason
of color as well as crime; but appeal to their magnanimity,
hoping for a result at no distant period.
10. Appeal also to their thirst for political State power,
in the increase of State representation by the admission of
all freemen to the vote.
11. "It is not just nor proper that the political advantages derived from the slaves becoming free should be confined to their former masters, who had fought against the
Union, and withheld from themselves, who had always been
loyal." 
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12. The tendency of continuing the domination of such
a class by leaving it in the exclusive possession of political
power, would be adverse to republican institutions.
13. Therefore, authorize that dominating class, by emending the Constitution for that purpose, to continue that exclusive possession as long as they choose, with simply the
political drawback of a representation of the rebel States
in the general government on the same rule as in all the
States, the rule of the actual number of voters.
14. With this provision, leave the whole question of the
disposal of the colored race with the people of each State,
meaning of course the white people; for the colored are set
aside as being tried for their social and political life, as
criminals at the bar, and judgment waits to be pronounced,
only the whites being judges. Leave it to the white people
of each State to determine whether the colored race shall
be any part of the people, with the people's right to vote.
15. This is "a gentle and persuasive policy," leaving
the colored race in the power of the white race, but reminding the oligarchy thus constitutionally established, that
each rebel State will have a larger representation in Congress if they conclude to admit colored citizens to that
vital privilege of United States' citizenship, the vote which
the amendment proposed by the Committee will give them
the right of withholding from as many as they choose.
Justice being thus rejected by the General government,
and injustice made constitutional, it may be hoped that
at no distant day, under such persuasions, the States will
restore to the colored race that right of citizenship and
humanity, which we have amended the Constitution to
enable them to take away.  "It may be hoped," says a
conspicuous  daily journal,  "that the South  will  now
accord equal rights to her freedmen," after such magnanimity on the part of the government in renouncing the
right of governing and protecting them.
Such is the report of the Committee, in regard to the 
grand central question of what is necessary for the security
of the rights of free loyal citizens in the rebel States.
The Committee declare that the principle involved in
this policy and amendment, "is known and believed to be
sound."  What principle is it?   The principle of,acrificing the rights of the colored race in order to conciliate
the prejudices of the rebels. There is no other imaginable
principle except that of the expediency, for the sake of an
easier reconstruction of the Union, of leaving the rebel
States in possession of exclusive political power over the
vote, as they have always held it, rejecting the colored
race from all participation in it.
The remainder of the Report is a long, abie, and conclusive demonstration that the people of the rebel States
are at present wholly unfit to be trusted with such power
or admitted by representation into Congress. They are
still disloyal, revengeful, treasonable in their spirit, attitude, and demonstrations, and requie,. for the safety of
the Union in future, that proper securities for peace and
obedience to the Constitution and laws, be exacted and
applied by Congressional legislation.  To this end, supreme
jurisdiction is claimel over them, and where it may not be
exercised directly, it is proposed to amend "the organic
law of government," so as to provide "such constitutional
or other guarantees as will tend to secure the civil rights of
all citizens of the republic, a just equality of representation, and protection against claims founded in rebellion
and crime." 
Such is declared to be the purpose of an amendment, the
direct action of which is to authorize these same rebel
States, pronounced unfit for representation themselves, to
take away the right of representation, the right of the vote
at their pleasure, from all the colored citizens of the United
States —an amendment designed to give over the whole
colored race of citizens into their power. That done, we
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may appeal to their magnanimity and hope for a just
equality of representation at no distant day.
CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS OF REPRESENTATION.
The Committee open that part of their Report with the
statement of a provision already in the Constitution,
namely, that representation shall be based on the whole
number of free persons in each State, and three-fifths of all
other persons. Since the abolition of slavery there are no
such "other persons;" but all are free.  Here, then, was a
sufficient rule of justice.  Why did not the Committee take
their stand on that, and propose that it be carried into
practice? It places the whole population of each State on
the same footing, with the right of representation according to numbers-that is, according to the number of
persons free, and therefore possessing, each, all, and
equally the right of representation. That right is personal, individual, and is exercised by the vote, and in no
other way. The whole number of free persons in the State
exercise it-the only condition in the Constitution being
freedom. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportionedeaccording to the number of free persons.  Representatives can no more be apportiored to the people without suffrage, than taxes without representation.   No taxation without representation.   No  representation without
suffrage. Suffrage is the individual exercise of the right of
representation; the expression of each one's representative
judgment and will, as a portion of the people. The right
cannot exist without the vote, and the vote, as well as the
right of representation, belongs to every individual of the
whole number of free persons in each State.
Now, then, Congress were bound to secure, by law, the
benefit and right of this constitutional provision in the
rebel as well as the loyal States. Congress were bound to
see to it that when the slaves became free, they should no
longer be unrepresented as chattels, or represented in 
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three-fifths, as the political property of their masters, but
represented for and by themselves, by their own will and
vote, according to the nature of representation with all
other free persons. All that Congress had to do in the
matter was to see to it that this provision having become,
by the ceasing of slavery, binding upon the rebel States as
well as the free, should not be evaded, but executed for the
benefit and protection of the particular class that by the
Constitutional Amendment forbidding slavery, had the title
to it, inasmuch as they, being free persons, had become
a part of the people of the States, by whom representatives
must be chosen, as well as on whom direct taxes must be
laid.
This action of the Constitution was inevitable, and imperious on the rebel States, unless the ConstitutIon itself
should be amended to prevent it. For the amendment
of the Constitution which made  the slaves free, threw
them back, in that very act and moment, upon the universal organic law of representation by the whole number
of free persons, no distinction of race or color being
possible, and made it inevitable that they should vote in
the rebel Statts as well as the free States.   President
Jolnson's plan of reconstruction providing that only such
persons should vote as had the right of voting, or did vote
before the rebellion and before the slaves were made free,
violated this law of the Constitution which based representation upon freedom, and excluaded the free colored race
from their constitutional and fundamental right. The
Congress and the Committee have followed that Presidential plan. But whereas on the part of the President it
was only a military proclamation, irrespective of the Constitution, it is essential that Congress and the Committee
must act under and by the Constitution.   It was impossible, therefore, to carry out President Johnson's plan
excluding the colored race from suffrage in the rebel
States, without an alteration of the Constitution giving to 
20
all the States, and consequently to the rebel States,
authority to base representation on the color of the skin,
and not on the number of free persons; that is, authority
to evade the constitutional provision of freedom and citizenship as constituting the right of suffrage, by denying
that right to whatsoever classes any State pleased, and for
other causes besides rebellion and crime; that is, authority
to deny suffrage on account of the color of the skin,
whenever any State chose to disfranchise its colored
population.
THE AMENDMENT A STRATAGEI TO EVADE THE CONSTITUTION.
Instead of obeying and carrying out the Constitution as
it stood, the Committee have prepared a new amendment
expressly to avoid  obeying it;  and  this  amendment
intended to surmount the difficulty presented by the law of
freedom in the Constitution, and the habit of long accustomed oligarchic and despotic power possessed by the white
race exclusively in the rebel States, is now, by Congressional adoption, as concentrating the wisdom and justice
of six month's deliberation, to be presented to the people
and Legislatures of the States for their acceptance; that is,
to the white people exclusively, and to Legislatures chosen
by the white race.   How is this preference of a class
despotism to be accounted for, when the establishment of
equality for all classes before the law was equally in their
power?
The same Congress voted to the State of Colorado the right
of disfranchising the colored race on account of color, when
they might have compelled that State, according to the Constitution, to base its representation on the whole number of
free persons, irrespective of color or race; thus showing
that their choice of this measure of despotism was hearty and
deliberate, and that they were not compelled into it by an
ultimate necessity such as that which compelled us to emancipate the slaves, nor by any difficulty otherwise insur 
21
mountable, for the overcoming of which the insertion of
an unjust and oppressive article in the Constitution by
amendment would be "eminently just and proper."  After
the vote on Colorado, it was quite needless for the Committee to go about with such laborious sophistry of a pressure of necessity and the intensity of rebel repugnance,
to justify their method of disfranchisement by alteration
of the Constitution. They might have taken it by naked
precedent of the procedure against the colored race in the
case of Colorado, as leaving them no alternative, inasmuch
as they could rot consistently give to a free State the privilege of disfranchising its colored population, and refuse
the same privilege to a rebel State; and this procedure might
have been based on the article which the Committee have
reported, providing that the privileges and immunities of
citizens in one State shall not be refused to the citizens
of another State. They might have said that it is contrary
to the Constitution that the privilege belonging to white
citizens in Colorado and Connecticut, of excluding colored
citizens from the right to vote, should be denied or abridged
to white citizens in South Carolina and Mississippi, more
especially as in'the case of these latter rebel States the white
people are in a minority, and have long enjoyed that privilege of disfranchising the majority as their right, and are
so habituated and attached to the exercise of its despotic
power, that the difficulty of refusing or abridging it is quite
insurmountable. They must be left in its continuance,
till they themselves choose, under this gentle and persuasive policy, to put an end to it.
Disfranchisement is only for loyal citizens, and the rebels
baving long been accustomed to inflict that punishment,
must be left undisturbed in that power. It is preached as
a duty and proof of forbearance and pity on, our part. We
must thus show our forgiveness of the rebels, our enemies, by leaving our friends at their disposal unprotected.
If they strike the negro on the right cheek, we must in 
stantly wrench him round and tell them to strike him on
the other. If they take away the negro's cloak, we must
let them take his coat also.   If they burn  his schoolhouses, we must let them also burn his churches. We
must forgive all the negro's injuries, and bind him over for
more.
THE AMENDMIIENT A POWER OF CHATTELiZATION.
Again, the measure proposed involves the comprehensive
and offensive result of saddling upon all the States of the
Union a despotic power of chattelization in effect, in order
that rebel States may not be compelled to treat their former chattels as free voting citizens, as human beings. Freedom and full citizenship having accrued to the colored race
in those States, by emancipation, the Committee propose to
leave that race still unrepresented, and the rebel States still
in the enjoyment of that power of ruling over them without
representation, which they have always possessed. Hence
the proposal of an amendment, reducing the whole colored
race throughout the Union to the same category of being
disfranchised at the pleasure of the State for other causes
than that of crime. That is, in order to gratify the prejudice of South Carolina, for example, against the blacks,
and to avoid interfering with the habit which that-State has
always enjoyed of ruling over the blacks as an inferior, unrepresented race of chattels and mudsills, the Committee
propose a measure which reduces the whole colored race in
all the States to the same level and capacity of being tramped
on as in the rebel States; authorizing the white Legislatures
everywhere to trample out the right of representation in
the blacks. For the sake of introducing South Carolina
to this freedom of destroying the right of suffrage in her
black population Massachusetts is endowed with the same
freedom, the same authority, by virtue of this amendment;
and the colored race in Massachusetts are just as liable to
be deprived of the right of voting, on account of the color
22 
of the skin, if the State choose, as the colored race in Southli
Carolina. This never before could be done by authorityv
of the Constitution. It is now made a State right, by this
amendment, everywhere, in order that it may be exercised
as a State right by the rebel States. The Committee have
taken pattern from the rebel States, and arranged the same
suit for All the States accordingly. It is Confederate rebel
grey adopted in the United States Constitution.
AN ILLUSTRATION FROM ORIENTAL DESPOTISM.
In order that the Jews in a particular city might be sacrificed to the prejudice and hatred of an inimical race in
power, an Oriental despot enacted that the people in all the
provinces tht'oughout his vast dominions should have'liberty
and the right to kill and destroy the race of the Jews,
wherever they pleased. It was of no consequence whether
it were done or iot elsewhere; it was certain that in the
particular city where Haman dwelt, and where especially
the Jewish race were the objects of his hatred, it would be
done. And in order that it might be done without seeming to exercise an invidious and merely local and selecting
vengeance, it was made universal by a law reaching through
the whole empire. Just sc in the case before us. If the
Committee had been composed of so many Hamans they
could not have contrived more artfully, more plausibly, a
measure for the gratification of the hatred of the rebel
States against the colored population.   In order to disfranchise that whole population in those States, a decree
goes forth that it shall be lawful according to the Constitution as amended for that purpose, to deprive the colored
citizens of the right of voting in any and in all the States,
either on account of color or of crime; if on account of
color, then the whole population so deprived in and by the
State, shall be counted null and void by the United States,
and dead as to any right of representation either as individua,ls or as a number in the census of the population.
2 
24
Just as if the Oriental despot had adtided in his decree
giving to the people in all the provinces the right of. killing
Jews, that if in any province they availed themselves of
that right, then the monarch would consider and regard
that portion of the population killed by them as being
really dead and buried, and no more to be numbered
among the people of the province to be cared for. The
analogy is impressive. For the measure proposing and
providing for the disfranchisement of the colored race on
account of the color of the skin, is the proposal and provision of their moral assassination; since from the time
that a man loses the right of representation he is in fact
considered as caput morluum, practically a chattel.. And
for men to be put to that death, as colored persons by the
white race and by white legislation, is the practice of the
judicial declaration of Justice Taney, that black men have
no rights that white men are bound to respect. And as
Taney base# his declaration on the ground  that it had
always been the habit and public opinion of the country,
and therefore ought not to be reversed, so the Committee
of Fifteen report that inasmuch as the rebel States have
always enjoyed the privilege of governing the blacks without representation, it would be perilous to attempt to
reverse  that  habit.   Therefore, in order to avoid the
appearance of injustice let the same habit be adopted by
all the States, and let the Constitution be amended accordingly.
Yet the Committee express a strong sense of the obligation of protecting the negroes, and abhorrence of the
abandonment of them to their former masters. They say
it was impossible to abandon them without securing their
rights as men and citizens, for they had become citizens
and freemen.   And yet those rights are taken from the
negroes and given to the whites. And the measure of
amendment proposed by the Committee is unquestionably
an effective and entire abandonment of them to the tender 
mercies of the rebels, with the agreement that being so
abandoned, and being in consequence deprived of suffrage,
and so of that right of self-l)rotection, which the report
of the Committee affirms to be essential, we, the white
government, will not interfere to protect them, or to prevent their oppression, in any other way but by providing
that if they are not permitted to vote, they shall not be
counted as population.   By  this gentle and persuasive
policy it is proposed to secure the rights of the negroes,
whom we have abandoned to the will of the rebel masters
to do with them as they please. We say to the rebels,
Disfranchise them at your pleasure. We provide for you
the constitutional authority to do this by an amendment
without which you could not constitutionally have done it
In consideration of your doing it, you will relinquish the
political power which would have accrued in the State representation, if they had been permitted to vote.  Having
thus secured their rights as men and citizens we abandon
them to you, and shall not interfere whatever you do with
them.
This is that "adequate security" in behalf of the negroes which be Committee claim to have wrought out "in
appropriate provisions of the Constitution," having found
it important to inquire what could be done to secure their
rights, civil and political. The answer to that inquiry
amounts to this:-Put them into the hands of the rebels,
withi the authority to destroy their right of suffrage, which
is essential to seif-protection, and then offer a premium of
increased political momentum in the State, congressionally,
if they fcrbear from exercising that authority.
DESPOTISM INAUGURATED IN rTHE CONSTITUTION.
A power of despotism never before imagined or asserted
to reside in the Constitution is created for this emergency,
'and set in it, even the power of destroying the primal right
of citizenship out of which the government springs, from
2
25 
26C)
which it derives its being and for the protection of which
in its wholeness and vitality untouched, unassailed, the
government is supported.   That power is created  and
given to each State, of destroying the right of representation in such classes as it pleases, and for any cause.  The
whole present purpose and occasion of this despotism is
that the rebel States may have and enjoy constitutionally
th(, power of disfranchising their black population. For
this purpose there must be a change in the organic law of
the government; not a change more firmly to secure the
primal and inalienable right of the citizen, but to transfer
that right to the possession of each State government at
its disposal. For this purpose it is proposed that it be
made a part of the organic law of our government that
each State shall have the lright to deny to any of its male
inhabitants at its pleasure the right to vote, being 21 years
of age, and citizens of the United States. This right is in
and by the amendment in effect assumed as being a State
right fundamental and undeniable. Whenever the right of
vote is denied to any of the inhabitants, being citizens
of tie United States, the basis of representation therein
shall be reduced in such State. No form of language
could more stealthily or less offensively affirm the right of
such denial of suffrage, yet no form could more effectually
convey it. It is assumed as so real and unquestionable that
when exercised, a reductior of the basis of representation
ensues.
That the nature of this proposition may be more clearly
v'sible we unite the first and second sections in logical
connection.   No  State shall make or enforce any laws
which shall abridge the privleges or immunities of citizens
of the United States. But the right to vote for United
States representatives or officers. is not a fundamental right
of citizenship of the United States, and may, therefore, be
denied or abridged by any State at its pleasure. Provided
only that whenever the right to vote for United States 
officers is denied to citizens of the United States, or
abridged, except for crime, the numerical basis of State
representation shall be reduced accordingly.
DENIAL OF THE RIGHT OF REPRESENTATION.
It has always been supposed that a primal privilege and
immunity of citizens of the United States was the right to
vote, or the right of representation in and for the gov ernment of the United States, even as a primal privilege
of citizens of the State is the right to vote or the right of
representation in the State government. But the prime ordial and inalienable nature of this right is here denied,
and on that denial a change in the organic law of the gov ernment is based, giving over to the government itself this
right of citizenship, as a possession and right not of the
citizen but of the State government, to be withheld or
bestowed at its pleasure. And this revolution, this coup
d'etat in the bowels of the Constitution, is undertaken
solely for the purpose of giving to the rebel States a constitutional right to disfranchise their whole colored population, and to govern them without representation.   In
other words to male each rebel State a white man's government, in which the blacks shall have no part, but though
a large numerical majority, as in South Carolina, shall be
governed solely by the whites, and disposed of in all respects at their pleasure.
This is all that the United States government can do,
all that the Committee of Congress propose to be done,
"for that large proportion of the population of the States
recently in insurrection, made freemen and citizens by
Constitutional Amendment, and who, through all the struggle of olur government against the rebels, had remained
true and loyal, and had in large numbers fought on the
side of Union." They propose to give the rebels supreme
power over these loyal citizens, as an "eminently just and
proper method of surmounting the difficulty encountered
27 
28
in the unwillingness of the rebel States to surrender a
power they had always exercised, and to which they were
attached."   They had  always exercised it over slaves.
Without an Amendment in the Constitution providing for
its exercise over freemen, its continuance would be contrary
to the Constitution. Provide, therefore, such an Amendment, by which they may continue to exercise the power
they are unwilling  to surrender, and couple it with "the
gentle and persuasive condition leading to an equal participation of all, without distinction, in all the rights and
privileges of citizenship, by holding out to all the advantage of increased political power, as an inducement to allow
all to participate in its exercise."  
It would have been as easy and legitimate to provide
by Amendment that colored citizens shall vote, as that
white citizens shall have the right to deprive ilhem of the
vote. By securing to them the vote the Committee would
have instantly and directly conferred upon the State that
advantage of increased political power, the prospect of
which they think will induce the rebels themselves to do
this justice. The Committee authorize the injustice, and
make it constitutional, and then invite the rebels to refrain
from it.
THE COLORED RACE BETRAYED WITH A KISS.
The Committee betray the colored race with a kiss into
the power of their enemies.   The  race are crushed between these two millstones, that Pilate and Herod may
renew their union. Pilate, willing to content the people
sets Barabbas at liberty, but delivers the just person into
their hands to be crucified. It is regarded as an eminently
just and proper method of surmounting the difficulty.
The Committee wash their hands'of the crime of renouncing the right of suffrage for the colored race, and giving
it over into the power of the rebels, by proposing that the
numerical representation of the rebel States shall be no 
29
greater than the number of actual voters shall justify, according to the law of representation in all the States. They
relieve themselves of the injustice of destroying the suffrage
and protective right of the colored race by constraining
the rebels to obey the constitutional law of numerical
equality in their own white representation.
It is intimated by the Committee as doubtful whether
Congress have any power to act directly on the subject of
the vote. Yet their argument is conclusive as to the supreme
authority of Congress over the rebel States. We believe
that the duty of guaranteeing a republican government
involves that power, since representation by suffrage is an
essential element of republicanism, and if destroyed republican freedom is destroyed.   It is therefore as perfectly
within the province of congressional authority to establish
and secure suffrage for the colored race, as for the white,
since without this there can be no republican government.
Bat whether it were so or not, it is certain that if Congress
have the right to recommend an alteration of the Constitution against the colored race, they have precisely the
same right to have recommended it in their favor. If the
Committee,could report it expedient to alter the Constitution so as to give the States the right of disfranchising the
blacks, they could also have reported in favor of an amendment forbidding any State from ever disfranchising any
citizen of the United States on account of the color of the
skin. The Committee had their choice. They have preferred to report in favor of disfranchising the blacks and
giving the power of such disfranchisement to the rebels,
and for that purpose to all the States.  They have done that
which is set down in the Word of God and is felt in the
common conscience of mankind to be a profound baseness
and criminality; they have administered justice out of
respect to persons, making that respect the foundation of
legislation, and that too in its lowest and most insolent
form, respect to the color of the skin. For the whole 
30
scope of this proposed legislation is in regard to the colored
race, and the only reason for its introduction and peculiarity is that they are colored; and the effect of the proposed amendment is to render constitutional what otherwise
would have been contrary to the Constitution, namely,
the taking away by the rebel States of the right to vote from
the colored race in those States on account of the color of
the skin.
And this has not been done without knowing what they
were doing, not without distinct choice and preference.
The right of the colored race to suffrage was demonstrated
and insisted on, with great power of argument and eloquence of appeal, as equal to that of the whites. Who,
not an idiot or a villain, could deny it? Forms of amendment were proposed, and just bills presented, recognizing
and securing that right, and forbidding its ever being.
taken away on account of color. Messrs. Sumner, Stevens
and Kelley, among others, have presented plans of reconstlUctioD, unexceptionable, based on equal justice to the
colored race as to the whites; but for that very reason they
have been rejected, and the votes of Congress have been
concentrated upon the injustice.
And certainly a more thoroughly considered, deliberate,
and needless act of injustice was never committed. And
this demoralizing proposition is now made to the Legislatures and people of all the States of the Union, to alter
the organic law of government so as to disfranchise the
whole colored race, so as to rob five million colored citizens of the United States of the right of representation if
the States please, that is, if the white people of the States
please; for the question of their own moral assassination is
not to be presented to the colored race themselves, as though
they had any interest in it or any right to adjudicate upon
it; but the white race are assumed and presupposed to be
the only judges.  The Committee proceed upon this assump tion   They have not intimated the opinion that the colored
I
k 
31
race are any portion of the people of the States in such a
sense as to have any right in the government, but their
proposed legislation is based on the assumption that they
are not, but that only the white race are the people.
In proposing to submit the question of suffrage to the people of the States, they necessarily exclude the colored
people, since to submit the question to them would be to
acknowledge beforehand the fact of their right to representation and the vote.  But the imagination is not entertained of any colored persons being permitted to vote
upon the question of their own disfranchisement by white
persons. The Committee in the arrangement proposed
would seem to have been grounded in the opinion that
black men have no rights that white men  are bound to
respect. The question relating to their dearest interests
are given to the white race alone, as being the people of
the States, to settle.
THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION A REVOLU TION AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION AND THE PEOPLE'S RIGHTS.
The amendment to the Constitution proposed by Congress, and the Singular affirmations of Senator Howard and
others in support of it, striking at the primal rights of citizenship, force upon us a renewed statement and defence of
what we had supposed would never need a discussion.
Wiat is citizenship? It is each man's individual share
and right in the political inheritance, for the strength
and protection of which all men join in the support of
government. and acknowledge and promise their allegiance.
Citizenship is the original covenant of each and all with the
government, established and maintained by choice and vote
of the citizens. It is exactly equivalent with, and held and
represented by the vote. It is the native, heaven-appointed
and constitutional quality and right of every person born
in the country and claimed as in allegiance to the government. There can neither be the right of allegiance without 
32
the right of citizenship, nor the right of citizenship without
the right to vote. Where is the pretence or declaration in
our Constitution that either the right of citizenship or of
the vote is a right emanating from the government? On
the contrary it is assumed, pre-supposed, as the common
law and substratum of political authority and action, that
citizenship and the vote are trusts conferred upon and committed to the government by the people, to be preserved
and 8uarded for the people; so that the government are
only commissioners in trust for the people, for the keeping
and usufruct of these great fundamental possessions, for
their benefit and security, while they go about their common and social business and enjoyments, without having to
maintain a private watch against burglars and thieves.
They have registered these bonds with the government, that
they might pursue their own work of progress, of iiLprovement in life and glory. Are they now to be told that both
bonds and coupons are a gift from the government, to be
bestowed or withheld at pleasure, or at the will of an imperium in imperio called State sovereignty? In that case,
State sovereignty is neither more nor less than a cunningly
devised machinery, by which the people can be robbed of
their rights under pretence of republicanism, while their
own government file a bill of bankruptcy, and put it out
of their power to interfere for the protection or restoration
of their property. It is the subtlest and most audacious
form of robbery when the government affinms such fraud
upon its citizens to be a reserved right of the States.
THE P]RIMAL ALLEGIANCE OF CITIZENS IS TO THE UNITED
STATES.
When a man is born in this country, he is born a citizen
of the United States, in allegiance to the United States
government, first of allU-not to the State first of all; and
there is no reserved right of the State to take away from
him any right which his United States citizenship carries 
33
with it. As a United States citizen he is bound to be re presented in the United States government, and this right
of representation is unavoidable and indestructible by
anything that the State can do. If not, then the United
States government is not the supreme government, but is
only an adjunct or servile asteroid of the State govern  ments. It is a fundamental and essential faculty of an inde  pendent, true government, which can claim allegiance, that it
regulate and protect the representation of its citizens in its
own national representative assembly. If it have not this
power, but is dependent for its representatives from the
people upon the will of another State, then it is a sham, a
contempt, a worthless appendage. It becomes only a pilot
fish for a shoal of State whales. The power of supreme
government is a representative power, and the representa  tion is from the persons in allegiance.  Whatever takles
place in any State, they cannot be cast off from their right
of representation in the supreme government, nor can that
government be defrauded of its right of representation,
coeval and coequal with  citizenship and allegiance, by
any contrivance or regulation of mere State representa  tion by State' citizenship.   The right of representation
for the General government from all its citizens carries
with it the right and power of the security and pro  tection of that right.   That right cannot be supreme in
two governments at once. It must be co-essential with citi   zenship and allegiance. When the government claiming
allegiance of all the people, without respect to any State
government, says the people shall be represented in the
House of Representatives, no State can come in and say that
only a part of the people shall be represented. To say that,
and to have that admitted, makes the State the supreme
government, and brings the General government as a beg   gar to its bar, while it sacrifices the rights of whatever
classes or proportion of the citizens it pleases, under pre   tence of the State right to determine the representation.
i 
34
You abdicate the quality of national sovereignty, and
thirty-six or forty imperia in imperio take it from you and
assume it over you. You may assume to be the head of
gold, but you give the regency and the brains to the feet
of iron and clay.
But the government that our fathers constructed was not
such a Nebuchadnezzar's image; if it were, it will be
ground to powder. When they said in our Constitution
that the electors of representatives in the general government shall have the same qualifications as of representatives to the most numerous body of the State legislatures,
they assumed as the foundation of republicanism, both in
the General and the State governments, the fundamental,
inalienable right to vote as belonging to the people, and
placed the right of the people to be represented in the
General government on the same basis with the right of
representation in their own State government.
RIGHT OF REPRESENTATION THE CORRELATIVE OF ALLEGIANCE.
What and who is a citizen? One who owes allegiance.
If he owes allegiance, the government owe to him protection ok all those rights for the security of which allegiance is proffered and citizenship secured. The citizens are
those who have created the government for their own protection, and the vote is the primal right and power of
such creatorship, and they cannot abdicate that right, or
be divested of it without being changed from sovereigns
into slaves. The assertion in the Senate by Mr. Howard
is unquestionably false, "that it has not been regarded as a
fumdamental right lying at the foundation of our society."
Because it was so regarded, and the British government
denied it, our fathers revolted against that government,
and threw it off as an unrighteous and despotic yoke, for
themselves and their posterity. Representation, not of
slaves nor skins, but of the people, the whole people, was
the fundamental right for which and by which th(ey con
k
I
t
i 
I
tended. The right of suffrage was and is the right of
representation. If representation belongs to all the people,
so does suffrage.  If representation is a fundamental right,
so is suffrage-for the one cannot exist without the other,
any more than the air that we breathe can exist without its
component elements. And it might as well be averred that
the right to breathe our atmosphere was not a fundamental
right, unless there were a local law permitting us to breathe
oxygen.
One might as well assert that though life and locomotion
were the natural right of all, yet the breathing of the air
was not. The Senator from Michigan might have argued
that the breathing of the air "has always been regarded in
this country as the result of positive local law.  It has not
been regarded as one of those fundamental rights lying at
the foundation of our society, and without which people
cannot exist without being slaves or subjected to a despo   tism."
Now for what purpiose is this denial of the fundamental
right of suffrage at this time introduced? It is a covered
way for the detructiou, of that right in the colored race.
It is for the purpose of justifying that act of robbery. It is
not pretended that white men have not fundamentally the
right of representation, or that there is any purpose or any
danger of their being deprived of it. But it is that they
themselves, the whites, in council, are resolved to take away -
their right from the blacks; and having the power of law  -making entirely in their own hands, and being determined
that the blacks shall never be admitted to any share in the
white men's government, they cut off the blacks by denial
of any fundamental right to vote, and by asserting suffrage
to be the creation of local law; and by putting the word
white into such law, as in the case of Colorado,  they
accomplish their work of moral assassination, and justify
themselves in it.  They make a law that every white man
has the right to vote- but no blacik man. The whole
,35 
36
ground and object of discussing the question is not to
establish or protect for any one a right, but to take it away
from a class whom it has been concluded expedient to rob.
Here are two hundred thousand soldiers, whom we have
put forward to defend our freedom and our life with the
bullet, whom we proceed to reward by robbing them of the
right to defend themselves and their own freedom, peaceably, morally, constitutionally, with the ballot?  For this
purpose we pervert the covenant of our fathers, and by
amendment of the Constitution, we force upon an article in
it which was intended to secure the right of representation
as a right of citizenship, the conveyance of authority to
destroy that right. As we formerly made a fugitive slavelaw under pretence of fulfilling the article providing for
justice, and appointed slave-hunters with rewards, we have A
now contrived an instrumentality of disfranchisement in
the centre of an article based on the inviolability of the
right of representation.  There is not only no opposition
to this outrage, but in order to justify it we deny the right
of representation as not belonging to the people. Yet
when it is proposed to take away that right for only four
years' quarantine of rebels, there is a storm of indignation.
The right belongs to rebels as citizens, so inalienably, that
four years' armed rebellion cannot take it away.   It is
such a right for them, that the taking of it from them
makes them slaves, but when our plan is to take it from the
loyal colored man, our justification is that it belongs to
nobody7 but+ by gift of the government, 
A BIRTH-RIGET OF HUMANI'iY DENIED.
For the sake of justifying a local law that deprives black
men of the right to vote, white men are found base enough
to denude themselves as men of that right, and to defend
it as being white men in power; they strip themselves of
the attributes of humanity, the rights of man, in order
that by contrivance of special law they, as white men, may
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exclude the blacks. They vote themselves into a privilege
by the color of the skin, which they deny to themselves as
belonging to themselves as men; their skin is better than
their manhood. A set of well tanned human hides would
be more dignified, more worthy to make laws, than these
politicians who thus deny their manhood to exalt their
,kin.
We despise our birth-right in order not to be compelled
to share it with the colored race. In order to gratify our
prejudice and pride we deny and reverse the most sacred
principles of our government. Every other government on
earth- is advancing, is endeavoring to carry to more complete
and perfect working its fundamental powers and vitalities.
We are going backward; Russia is advancing, England is
advancing. The governments of the Old World are enlarging their principles.  We are contracting ours, and denying the faith of our fathers. When was the right of
representation ever before questioned? But now it is
affirmed to be a boon from the government, in order to cut
off the colored face from being sharers in it. The natural
rights of citizenship are contested, solely in order that negroes may be deprived of them. That is our statesmanship,
the whole scheme and labor of reconstruction-to bring in
the rebels and keep out the negroes.  We took the negroes
into our armies to fight for our own rights; protecting us
from the rebels. We now refuse to protect them from the
same rebels; we give up their rights, and enact that the
rebels shall have the right to rob them, and we strip them
of their own right of self-defence, we take away their
citizenship, and return the rebels into power over them as
being the only citizens with the right to vote. We renew
the old State laws against them. Whatever is against them
we enact, for we have the power to sweep away all that
legislation, and whatever we permit, we establish. Qui
faeit per aliumfacit per se.  We are supreme to do evil, but
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to do good we have no power. We cannot do justly against
public opinion.
A FREE AND JUST REPRESENTATION, NOT PUBLIC OPINION,
THE RULE OF LEGISLA.TION.
A distinguished representative from Massachusetts (Mr.
Banks), is reported as saying that he "had no doubt that
the government of the United States had full authority to
extend the elective franchise to the colored people of the
South; but he did not think it had the power. The public
opinion of the country was such at this moment as to make
it impossible. He therefore thought it wise on the part of
the Committee on Reconstruction to waive that matter in
deference to public opinion. He approved the proposition
to disfranchise the enemies of the country. He did not care 
much whether the extension of franchise to the negro -was
coupled with it." That is, in his judgment, it was just to
disfranchise the enemies of the country; it was also expedient to disfranchise its friends. The enemies of the country, being white, possess the franchise by virtue of their
citizenship; being white, they cannot be deprived of it
except by special law and in punishment for crime. The
friends of the country being black, are excluded from it by
their color, and cannot be possessed of it except by special
law, and although the Congress have the authority thus to
bestow it, it is expedient to withhold it in deference to
public opinion.
Public opinion is thus clothed with the authority of legis lation, and enthroned in its place.  Public opinion is
enacted as law; prejudice and social oppression are enacted
as law. This is American statesmanship. Let the enemies
of the country be disfranchised in punishment for treason.
Let the friends of the country be also disfranchised in
deference to public opinion, because of their color.
Was this distinguished representative sent by the people
of Massachusetts to legislate in deference to such public 
39
opinion?  Or to carry out the principles of a just and free
Constitution in the protection of a republican government
secured by law? Whose public opinion? If that of Massachusetts, it is well known to be in favor of suffrage; if
that of the rebels and their treason, against it. But where
is the evidence? the expression?  If solemn and permanaent taws are to be shaped by it, there must be some definite,
unmistakable development and proof of it. But suppose
the public opinion is in the wrong, and the constitutional
obligation and authority of Congress in the right.
Moreover, there is an ancient edict, Thou shalt not follow
-: multitude to do evil.  That which is altogether just shalt
thou follow. He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling
in the fear of God, not of public opinion.  Our representa tives are appointed to enact and administer just laws, and
not public opinion. If public opinion is the guide of states manship and the rule of affairs, then the rebels were justi fied in their rebellion in behalf of slavery, just as com pletely justified in keeping slaves and fighting for that
privilege as we are justified in withholding the right of suf frage from the blacks, which belongs to them as citizens.
It was public opinion that justified Aaron in moulding the
golden calf.  It was public opinion of them that sat at meat
with him that justified Herod in the murder of John the
Baptist. It was public opinion that guided Pilate's states manship when he gave up Christ at the voice of the multi tude to be crucified, but set Barabbas the murderer free.
Even so, now, the rebels are rewarded with freedom and the
vote; the loyal colored race are delivered to their will to be
crucified.
A PERILOU-S AND DESPOTIC REVOLUTION.
Now the great revolution which is this instant going on is
this. The government are deliberately taking from the
people their sovereign rights as people, and putting them
out of the citizens' power to recover, end out of the power
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of the United States to protect, by transferring them over
to the States as State rights; not the people's rights, no
longer rights at all, but conferred dignities, at the pleasure
of the State sovereignties.  From the people as the people
represented in the United States government as their government, to the States as States, constituted, by this revolution the masters of the government and people.  The
government are conveying away the people's securities from
their own keeping in trust for the people over into the
power of State sovereignties to keep from the people, cutting off the coupons as they please, and paying to whom
they please, as a boon, not a right, not a property.
It is impossible not see the transaction? It was in the
Reconstruction plan of the President for the rebel States
from the outset; but the amendment now proposed goes
farther, giving to all the States what Congress have no
right to give to any, because it belongs to all the people, and
was never committed to the Congress to legislate away, but
to guard and confirm to and for the people; giving to the
States, as the States please, the power of withholdingfromn
the people, by local law, their primal, inalienable right to
the vote.
The people's right to vote in, under and for the government to which they owe allegiance, is between them and
that government alone; belongs to them alone, with respect to that government; and no State can take it away.
The people as citizens of the United States can exercise it,
anything in any State to the contrary notwithstanding.  If
it were not so, their liberties are precarious indeed. If they
could not vote for their own representatives in that government, which, under God, they have created anew, by preserving it from destruction at the hands of State rebel
sovereignties; if they could not vote without the intervention of another government, the State government saying
whether they should or not, and empowered to take away
that privilege and right at its pleasure, or to forbid the
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people's exercise of it, they are serfs, not freemen. The
citizens of the United States have no government but a
State lordship over them.   They hold even the rights possessed under their own government as a boon from an inferior government, called theirs, but which is really a machinery by which cunning politicians may wield the people's
power for their own advantage and take away the p)eople's
rights to perpetuate their own oligarchy.
As well might it be left in the power of England to say
whether you should vote for representatives in Congress.
The State is not your State, any more than England is
your England, if you have not this power of representation
belonging to you as a right which it cannot take away.
Your right to vote for representatives in Congress belongs
to you as citizens, in allegiance to that government of
which the Congress are your administrators; it belongs not
to the State, but to you as citizens of the United States,
and no State can take it away. No State can take away
from you, because you are also citizens of the State, what
belongs to you as citizens of the United States; and is a
correlative right and duty of your allegiance, under the
United States government. If the State could, by virtue of
your citizenship and allegiance in the State, compel you to
resign your rights and privileges as citizens of the United
States, you are under a despotism, and there is none to protect you. Instead of being sovereign owners of the mill,
you are between the millstones.
And this is just where the Congress of the United States
are putting you, in abdicating in your name your sovereign
right to vote, and passing it over into the power and at the
disposal of the State governments. This is done in and for
the rebel States, for the sake of trampling down the
negroes, and restoring the rebels to power over them.  But
in doing this they enact a treasonable revolution against
the authority, rights, and liberties of the people. Instead
of returning into your own hands as citizens the primal
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power of suffrage, which they refuse to protect for you,
-they pass it over into the hands of State oligarchies, conveying it away from you by a bargain with third parties,
who in the rebel SGites are to keep your power, your
rights, in their hands at their pleasure. In return for this
revolution, and by means of it, they take their place as
sovereign States in a government that has abnegated its
own power of protection, and transferred its subjects to the
will and disposal of rebel State oligarchies. This is done
without consulting the citizens themselves, the people thus
transferred.
Put yourselves in their place. Would you resign your
representative citizenship? Did you ever agree that your
right to vote for your United States representatives should
be taken away l)y your State Legislature? On the contrary, do you not hold that right as an element of personal
sovereignty over your own State, an element and a right,
by which you keep in check your own State, and hold a
double bit to prevent it from passing into a local despotism? Now let that personal right to vote for your representatiyes in Congress be put at the disposal of your State
Legislature, and instead of your holding a double bit upon
the State, the State holds a double bit on you. The State
puts you into a vice, and turns the screws upon you at its
pleasure.  That is the revolution that is now going on, for
the sake of putting the negro under the lebels.
Your own Congress are putting your right of representstion in their body out of your power into the power of the
State Legislature, and out of their power to protect for you
into the power of the State Legislature to take away from
you. And they are doing this on the pretence that your
right of suffrage "is not in law one of the privileges and
immunities secured by the Constitution." They are doing
it on the pretence "that your right of suffrage has not
been regarded as one of those fundamental rights lying at
the foundation of our society, and without which people
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cannot exist without being slaves, or subjected to a despotism." Your Congress hand you, the people, over to the
States to put you in straight-jackets as political lunatics, if
you presume to assert your own inalienable right of representation, irrespective of the will of the Legislature. In
other words, your Congress decide that the State owns you,
instead of you owling the State.
The State Legislature is converted by the Committee of
Fifteen into a Diaphragm Filter for the inalienable rights
of the people, who thenceforth cannot get so much as a cup
of cold water without going to the State sovereignty for it,
and there receiving as a boon what belongs to them by citizenship. Few, indeed, will be the natural rights of the
people remaining after running through the complication
of political seives constructed as strainers. True, they do
not apply this to white men; it is for negroes; it is to keep
out the blacks from the rights of white men. The blacks
shall have the mud, but the gold and diamonds shall be for
the white race. But, in order to cover up and justify the
fraud, the denial of the natural right of representation becomes necessalr and is resorted to; and that constitutes a
revolution, by Which at any time your house may be set on
fire as well as your black neighbor's, or a writ of ejectment
issued against you from all your premises of inalienable
rights and franchises.
It is a revolution, changing the whole government from a
republican, representative government to an oligarchy, in
which rebel States will have the supremacy by virtue of
having the largest number of helpless citizens trampled
into serfs. And the question is, Are you willing, for the
sake of providing a way by which the rebel States may
trample on the negroes, and come into the Union with
them under foot, to have your own right of representation
in your own government denied, or put at the disposal of
the State governments? If so, you deserve to be made
slaves, and in fact the act and amendment by which the
e 
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rebl States come intolthe Union with the blacks under their
feet sets you-also under the feet of an oligarchy, choosing
to return to a more degraded condition than your fathers
fought to deliver you from.
You deny your own birthright, not for a mess of pottagethere would be comparative virtue in that; but-for the sake
of denying to the negro a participation in human rights.
You consent to base the most sacred of your own rights on
the whiteness of your skin, in order that you may take
away the most sacred rights of the colored race on account
of the blackness of theirs.  What your fathers fought for
unto the death as an inalienable right of freedom, because
they were men, you accept as a boon of ityranny,, because
your skins are white.  And this doctrine now taught in
Congress make rebels, slanderers, and hypocrites of your
dead fathers, - for the sake of rewarding living rebels with
power as loyal men, and putting down loyal citizens by
disfranchisement under them.  As Burke once said, Your
Senators and Representatives unplumb the dead, for bullets
to assassinate the living. They desecrate our fathers' sepulchres, and the altar of human nature itself,- and immolate
the colored race by tricks; the dice being loaded, the
amendment a fraud.  May God preserve the people, and
restrain the State Legislatures from consumnmating  the
proposed iniquity.
.     - I. -                            2                              -1.
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